Become a politician to solve the climate crisis?

Politicians can suggest and vote for policies which help combat climate change [6]. For example:

Education: the United Nations advises that all children should learn about climate change in school [7]. The Italian and Mexican governments are already planning how to do this [7]. A better understanding of the causes, effects and solutions to climate change will drive stronger climate action [8].

Carbon Pricing: placing a fee on emitting greenhouse gases, and/or providing incentives for producing fewer emissions [1]. With this in place the negative effects of climate change (such as rising sea levels) are, in theory, payed for by the people who are responsible for the problem [1]. Carbon pricing can, for example, increase the cost of burning fossil fuels and encourage the development of cleaner energy sources [1]. It can come in the form of a tax or of an ’emissions trading system’ which gives each member a tradable allowance for emissions [1,2]. About 13% of global emissions are covered by carbon pricing [11].

Low-carbon Energy: energy production (used for electricity, heating, transport fuel, manufacturing etc.) is responsible for about 72% of global emissions [12]. Therefore, reducing emissions from energy is a priority for governments; they need to enforce production of low-carbon energy with renewables or nuclear power [15,16,17].

Farming Policies: agriculture, forestry and other land uses are responsible for ~23% of emissions, so we need to change how we use land, for example by reducing deforestation [3]. Among other things, this requires reducing food waste [3] by improving packaging, increasing awareness in consumers, and using unavoidable waste to generate energy [4].

We need many politicians in every country all acting to achieve the same goal: effective climate action [5,13,14]. Would you like to become a politician to help make the world a better place?